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Ok, planning on going to university next year and a uni I'm looking at completely prohibits the use of wireless routers because of signal interference, rogue DHCP servers and general lack of security. You have one Ethernet jack in your room, that can only server content to a single MAC.

I've been taking to the techs and they've said there's a "chance" they would change their policy if they could have a wired only router, with the ability to make a "custom" firmware that locks the device down (ie: ensuring the DHCP is set correctly) that the "Hornet Representitives" (voluntary staff) cold easily setup and distribute.

As I see it, as long as the router servers 192.168.0.x IP's, there will be no interference with the 10.0.x.x DHCP server for the uni.

So, any ideas on a wired only router, built in DHCP, custom firmware capabilities, and is fairly cheap with 4 or 5 Ethernet ports?

PS: they've said switches are out of the question too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6833704070

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6833156001

Were the only cheap (below a few hundred dollars) that I could find that weren't rated horribly.

Although neither of them are support by dd-wrt (at least not known support). So I don't know .

Seems most wired only routers get horrible ratings for some reason.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

List of supported ones there but I don't feel like going through it (sorry ).

Yeah, I mean, I suppose we could use wireless routers and simply disable the wireless interfaces. Also, we need to be able to keep features such as DHCP running, but not allow users to modify the settings. DD-WRT seems quite complex to modify too

Got a similar issue where I'm at. I have a single Ethernet port in my room that serves only one client. I could buy a wireless router and use it though (I live slightly off campus). Are you looking for this kind of thing: http://www.scanstation.co.uk/networking-...roogle#829 ?

Why not just splice the connection from your PC to other devices?

I only referenced dd-wrt since it seems to be the most popular open source firmware for routers (and thus assumed it would support the most models).

I've personally never tried any custom firmware.

(2012-03-11, 10:39 PM)Lo. Wrote: [ -> ]Why not just splice the connection from your PC to other devices?

Because it is explicitly disallowed in the uni ToS. They use deep packet inspection to determine if the traffic comes from a single source


I basically need a wired only router, that they can customise the firmware for that they can lock down the DHCP for. Or, they need a wireless router that they can turn off the wireless capabilities through custom FW for the same reasons

I like my Buffalo router, it comes with DD-WRT and a simplified branded firmware as well. Wireless can be disabled, DHCP is included, etc.

Ask them about 5ghz wireless. Regular wireless is 2.4ghz, but a lot of newer routers are dual band.

No need for custom firmware, just them set the admin user/pass once they configure it and give it back to you.

The problem is not wireless interfering with other devices, but other wireless routers. Two wireless routers in close proximity can consume all of the bandwidth in the area, creating dead spots.

Also, the DHCP needs to be locked down, so even with the username and password they can't change it. These routers need to be pretty cheap too students don't like spending money ^_^